Museums got their start with cabinets of curiosity, where individuals and groups would display their treasures, artifacts, and objects of interest from around the world. Our curio carts are a playafied version of this.

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We've finished the first curio cart, it looks like this:

Like the larger ziggurat structure we're bringing to the playa, the carts use a slotted wood design, and other than the casters on the bottom they use no metal fasteners to hold them together.

We had a great time at the Participation Picnic this weekend. The weather and turnout was great, the potluck BBQ was delicious, the rubber stamp bar was a hit, and we met lots of awesome burners.. both veterans and newbies alike. Thanks Jocko for the invitation, and thanks to the Special Events team and other volunteers who helped pull that off.

Here's a pic of the poster we had on display at the picnic, it's an updated render of what we'll look like from the front.

What it does not show… art installations in each of the 5’ wide ‘wall unit’ displays on either side of the Ziggurat, smaller art ‘curiosities’ that will be displayed on the carts, painted trim details on the ziggurat panels, lighting for night-time, and signage for out front.

We've put the call out to Eridu Society members to assemble some of the more interesting finds they've made on their travels and explorations, and are starting to hear about some remarkable finds. Anything from arcane symbols and sculpture to a dragon skeleton, to the charred fragments of what appears to be a blue police call box that may have met an unfortunate end in the distant future. Fascinating, to say the least - we look forward to putting our best pieces on display in the desert...

trilobyte wrote:The Eridu Society is planning to return to Burning Man in 2013. We'll be creating a new installation that ties in with both the Cargo Cult theme and our camp's background. Through our art and interactions, we'll share the history of ancient Sumer and discuss the ideas of our ancient alien ancestry. These pages will be used to talk about our plans and to share our progress on the road to Black Rock City.

We are the original cargo cult, dating back thousands of years to ancient Sumer. The righteous ones (known as Anunnaki) established Eridu as the first city on Earth more than 70 centuries ago. Since they left us, we've traveled through time, space, and several of the better dimensions looking for signs. We believe they are returning to Earth, so we're embarking on an expedition to meet them in the Black Rock Desert. We'll build a ziggurat in their honor, and offer up tributes and gifts to visitors and converts while we await the return of the Anunnaki.

The main focus of our public space will be the climbable 4-tiered ziggurat (sort of like a stepped pyramid) facade. At the top will be a small altar and shade structure, which will also serve as an observation deck and place to relax. The front of each shade structure will feature 'light box' displays, where we'll showcase art representing the archeological finds from our travels and exploits. Out front, two small 8'x8' shade structures will serve to hold lighting gear (to illuminate the ziggurat at night), feature display cases to accommodate smaller art pieces, and act as a place for the occasional serving of food or drink.

We look forward to seeing you on the playa!

Truly an amazing structure!

Sometimes I'm confused by what I think is really obvious. But what I think is really obvious obviously isn't obvious.

Thanks maryanimal. I'll take a moment to post some of the recent work in progress (as well as a couple snaps from the Burning Man picnic at Golden Gate Park), and continue to do so from time to time to keep those with an interest updated, as well as to keep from taking over this wonderful thread (if you enjoy seeing people working on and building amazing stuff, check it out).

First, a couple shots from the Participation Picnic…

An incredible day - great weather, great turnout, lots of happy and enthusiastic people all bringing stuff to share. I already posted a pic of our updated one-sheet, we had a 4 foot wide version of it hanging at the back of the shade so we could show people what we were up to, and people seemed to like it a lot. Aside from the picnic, we've been very, very busy these last couple weeks…

I've been learning and extensively using CNC machines and tools in my art over the last few years. It's been quite a challenge, but I enjoy pushing both myself and the machines further in an effort to make them turn out things that are decidedly more artful than parts for chairs, desks, and bookshelves (as they're often used for). This year's installation is a significantly more ambitious plan than we've had in the past, but we started early and I've been working hard to get the job done.

A different kind of dust…

Cutting a sheet of 'footpads' and 'insiders' (two types of connectors that will be used)...

Parts is parts is parts… rough cut parts all ready to be worked by hand on the table router (a different tool, used to smooth and round the edges slightly)...

We're up to 640 pieces cut so far, with another 60 to go. Inspired by Bravo's word cloud picture from last week, we endeavored to create a 'word cloud atlas' to display on one of the curio cabinets.

The front (above) features a cloud made from the names of camps on the public list. The back (below) features one made from the descriptions. The larger the word, the more frequently it's used.

I updated our 3D model of the camp to include the stairs on the front sides of the Ziggurat.

And below is a rough assembly test of one of the stairs. As you'll see, the top of the stair has a laser-etched design along the edges, which still has to be painted. The front of the step also has a laser-etched symbol (it's cuneiform, and translates to mean 'ascend'), which we've painted using fluorescent orange paint that ought to really pop at night.

Ideally, we have plans to decorate all the front facing panels as well as the stairs.

Aside from the great news about placement, we've been busy these last couple weeks. We got the etching of panels finished up, and are hard at work on painting...

from eridu all this nonsense

painting parts

painting under close supervision

parts parts parts

And while we were doing that, the computer was chugging along on a ten second render test. I've been tinkering around with some of the atmospheric settings to see if I could improve upon the overall look and feel. Nowhere near perfect, but I like the way it came out.

We're still hard at work, mostly painting and coating Ziggurat parts but also working on camp stuff and getting our personal burn prep ready. I'm also really excited to hear that one of our campmates has been in touch with The Ultra Violets, a Black Light Burlesque troupe that's making their way to the burn. They're very excited to hear about our plans to bathe the Ziggurat in UV light at night, and are interested in doing a TRON striptease show some evening early in the week! I'll post more about that as details get finalized....

Progress!

And since I missed posting it here in the last update, here's a video clip we put together to show a bit about the process, and making use of the high tech tools at a local community workshop we're involved in....

Thanks, and yeah, it's an incredible amount of work (we've been in production mode for months). Very little of the project is done using the laser cutter, (other than the model). Don't get me wrong, we love that tool, but the lasers we have access to aren't capable of something on this scale.

I did use the laser cutter this morning to work on some additions for our rubber stamp bar...

Thank you so much! Sorry to hear you won't be there this year, but we'll do our best to document it (pics and videos will certainly find their way onto our FB page). Plus, it's a modular design, we hope to be able to use most (if not all) of it in future installations.

SI'm sorry for being so late posting, but I've finally gotten the chance to add pictures from our expedition to our site. You can click that link to check them out, or go here to check out some of the videos.